Thursday, January 01, 2015

I recently
went to see the new Biblical epic, Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings. I was especially interested to do so
because last year I preached my way through Exodus chapters 1-20 and I am
planning to return to the book soon. And I thought it might provide me with
some copy for the insatiable parish magazine, which it appears to have done! If
you haven’t already seen the film and intend to, perhaps I should say that you
might think this article contains spoilers. Right, those of you who are still
with us, what should we make of it?

Both The Telegraph and The Guardian gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, and I think that’s
about right. I found it watchable, but I’ve no real desire to see it again. Not
Ridley Scott’s best work, I reckon. Gladiator
is worth owning; Exodus isn’t.

I suppose
we can expect Hollywood to take some licence when it treats Holy Scripture. I
didn’t see the Noah movie, but my
impression is that this adaptation was rather less outlandish (no giant stone
monsters, for example) but much less straight that Cecil B. De Mill’s The Ten Commandments, which is undoubtedly
a classic of its type and still a great film. I was disappointed that there
seemed to be some unnecessary monkeying about with the Biblical narrative in Exodus. For example, I can’t really see
that it was required for Moses to have a bump on the head before he met with
God at the Burning Bush. Even if the film-makers had issues with historicity of
the Exodus narrative they might have trusted it as a great story and left us to
make up our own minds about its truthfulness. Attempts to explain or explain
away the story might not carry as much conviction as letting it stand on its
own merits.

The drama
of the plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea were striking. The film brought
home the mighty power of God and the devastation of these terrible events with
the full panoply of modern special effects. Though we might have our quibbles,
this might actually enhance our reading of the Biblical texts as we wonder what
these things might have been like to live through. If we are tempted to sanitise,
domesticate or gloss over the events which are briefly narrated in Exodus, Exodus might be an antidote.

The
depiction of God was interesting. He appeared as a ten year old boy. For the
Christian this is intriguing, especially when the movie is released just after
Christmas. God as a boy could suggest identification with the human condition,
especially with his people in slavery in Egypt. The incarnation is all about
God caring enough about our plight not only to somehow save us from afar but to
enter into it as our rescuer. Thus we have a God who is not also powerful but
personally sympathetic. He knows what fear and exploitation feel like for a
human being from the inside. Though I fear that for the film-makers, God as a
child was perhaps meant to suggest petulance and unpredictability. This God
played dice. Moses seemed to have modern liberal values; God less so. This God
didn’t quite stamp his foot and have a tantrum but you felt that he might. In
the film the Passover is presented as morally problematic when the Bible sees
it as a deserved judgement, though we might find this hard to swallow.

The film’s
Moses was perhaps more Braveheart
than prophet, but one point which did come through clearly was Moses’ inability
to save his people. He has to learn humility and come to the point where he
recognises his dependence on God. To this we can say, “Amen”. In fact, the
Bible later calls Moses the meekest man in all the earth. We might fairly
assume that this was to some extent hard-won rather than a natural part of his
personality. More importantly, Moses might be the agent of salvation – in this
he is a picture of the greater Saviour to come, the Prophet like Moses, Jesus
Christ.But salvation is the work of
God alone. God saves us despite ourselves, because of his undeserved love for
us. Our response is trust and obedience. It’s not for us to set about saving
ourselves or other apart from God.

If the Exodus movie causes us to revisit the
Biblical book of Exodus that would be a very good thing. And even better if we
manage to see in Exodus a picture of our own deliverance from our slavery to
sin.